If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Threaded View

20 minutes from the Great Smoky Mountains N.P. and lots of cool water fishing.

Posts

108

Great day with a not so great start

Was supposed to go to the Buming River today with a guy our son stays with to do do some fishing and have him work with me on my casting. I got to the agreed meeting place about 20 minutes early and waited. And waited, and waited. When he hadn't showed after and hour, 45 minutes after we had agreed to meet, I called and left him a message that I had waited but we had either gotten our wires crossed or something had come up on his end. He did call later and told me his power had gone out during the night and he had over slept.

Since I had a free day, both a kitchen pass and with him not showing, I decided to head up to the Green River and give that a shot on my own. Ended up at the Highway 18 bridge at about 8:45 and was suited up, lined up and on the water by 9:00. Spent about 20 minutes just watching the water to see if there was any kind of activity from a hatch or other and didn't see anything, so rigged up a #16 Black Gnat, waded out to reach the far shore where there is some cover and a small seam around log jam and started casting. Made a dry presentation, upstream cast and dead drift, and worked my way upstream working the cover on both shores and where the water had depth changes.

Worked the gnat for about 20 minutes with a couple of splashy strikes but nothing to hand, and switched to a #14 Royal Coachman and continued to work my way up stream. For some reason, I had it in my head that a Coachman is a dry, but the ones I tied are very wet. Maybe I tied them wrong. None the less, I worked the Coachman for another 20 or so minutes but got nothing for the effort. Switched back to the Gnat in a #14.

After about an hour, I had come to another log jam and before starting to work the jam I decided to take a break and have a smoke. Since I had already made a cast, I just let the gnat drift while I lit up and just as I was putting the lighter back in my pocket, with the line almost straight downstream, I got a good solid strike and lifting the rod, had hooked my first fish of the day and first trout on a fly, and after a tremendous battle that lasted about one minute I had my first trout in hand. Not a big one, maybe 6 inches, but hey, it is the first.IMAG0049.jpg

Continued to work up the jam, and brought in four or five more of similar size with all but one taken on the downstream half of the drift. Hmmm, maybe there was something learned here.

Continued working upstream for another hour, maybe about a mile of the river total, with a couple more taken. Then started back and came to that same jam I had caught the first, and caught half dozen more out of that hole while passing by.

All told, I spent about 4 hours on the water and caught a dozen or so small rainbows and all in all had a wonderful time, even with the not so great start.